Chicago Significance

• • Many Northern white- supported King's Southern campaign sympathised with Chicago whites who knew that if blacks moved into white -working class areas- property values would fall & schools would decline
  • Helping the ghettos would cost tax payers money & white Americans were unwilling to pay for improvements
• King's Campaign Achieved Little


  • Alienated whites & despite $4 million Federal GOV grant for Chicago housing & a legacy of community action- many black Chicagoan's lapsed into apathy
  • Several SCLC workers remained in Chicago after King left-
  • Some turned to the Black Power Movement- contributed to King's increasing disillusionment & conviction for further progress unlikely
• • King persisted
  • He sought to broaden the movement by uniting all impoverished groups in his Poor People's Campaign- wanted Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans & poor Appalachian whites to come together to camp out in Washington DC in a civil disobedience campaign that would draw national attention to their poverty- idea didn't work
• March 1968- white racist assassinated MLK in Memphis, Tennessee